They left their families to survive the Nazis

Nov. 5, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Ruth Moos, 90, of Laguna Woods was 13 when she fled Nazi-controlled Germany in the kindertransport effort that moved mostly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia to foreign countries prior to the start of World War II. LEONARD ORTIZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Ruth Moos of Laguna Woods, who was saved from the Holocaust in the 'kindertransport' effort, poses here with a collection of family photos from before World War II. LEONARD ORTIZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Jewish refugee children, part of a Children's Transport (Kindertransport) from Germany, soon after arriving in Harwich. Great Britain, Dec. 2, 1938. — Wide World Photo WIDE WORLD PHOTO

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Refugee girl, part of a Children's Transport (Kindertransport), shortly after arrival in Harwich. Great Britain, Dec. 2, 1938. BIBLIOTHEQUE HISTORIQUE DE LA VILLE DE PARIS

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Kindertransport children traveled into the arms of strangers. INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

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Jewish refugee children, part of a Children's Transport (Kindertransport) from Germany, upon arrival in Harwich. Great Britain, Dec. 12, 1938. INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY AND WIENER LIBRARY LIMITED

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The first transport from Berlin embarks at the Hook of Holland, Dec. 1, 1938. COURTESY OF KINDERTRANSPORT ASSOCIATION.

Ruth Moos, 90, of Laguna Woods was 13 when she fled Nazi-controlled Germany in the kindertransport effort that moved mostly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia to foreign countries prior to the start of World War II. LEONARD ORTIZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The day in 1936 when 13-year-old Ruth Moos fled Nazi-controlled Germany, her parents stood on the train departure platform in Berlin, crying. But she didn't dare look at them or wave goodbye. The pain would have been unbearable.

Instead, the teenage girl steadfastly read a novel she'd brought for her journey across the Atlantic.

"I had to shut off my emotions completely," said the Laguna Woods resident, who is now 89.

That lasted for two decades. Then she began what became extensive, daily therapy sessions – and cried day and night for two years, she said.

Moos (pronounced Moss) was one of about 11,000 children whose parents made a heart-wrenching decision to send them to live with strangers in foreign lands as Adolf Hitler steadily intensified persecution of Jews in Nazi territories before World War II.

Hitler's early policy was to promote Jewish emigration from his growing empire. Most nations, however, refused to accept refugees during the Great Depression. So, caring activists in and out of the Nazi region worked to at least get some children out.

The concerted efforts to move children to safety were known as the kindertransport. A gathering of some of those children who were saved is taking place this weekend in Irvine.

With permission from the British parliament, families and orphanages in the United Kingdom took in at least 9,300 children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland in the nine months before open war broke out in September 1939. The hosts had to prove their ability to provide for the children and agree to care for them until adulthood.

About 1,400 unaccompanied kids went to the United States without explicit government approval and over a much longer period.

The British kindertransports – and the letters between parents and children – ended with the invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. A transport of 251 Czechoslovakian youth left Prague on Sept. 3 but could not be completed. None of those children are believed to have survived the genocide.

By war's end in 1945, Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party had killed nearly 6 million people of Jewish ethnicity, including 1 million children. Some of those kids were used in grotesque medical experiments including sewing twins together and amputating limbs without need or anesthesia before being killed.

The vast majority of parents who sent their children away in the kindertransports did not survive the genocide, according to numerous historical accounts. Saying goodbye at the train station was the last time those children saw their parents.

Moos, whose departure in late 1936 was among the earliest, was one of the rare exceptions. She did see her parents again – 24 years later.

FEAR OF THE SWASTIKAS

Her father wasn't even sure she needed to go, Moos said. Though Jewish, he didn't think he or his family would be a target of the Nazis because he had served in the German military during World War I and had received an iron cross medal. Moos' mother, however, felt it was urgent that she leave. The day Moos left was the only time she ever saw her father cry.

In some ways, Moos wanted to leave Germany. She was upset that she, along with all Jewish children, had been banned from attending public schools. Boys she had known for years called her "dirty Jew" and threw rocks at her. But most of all, she said, it was the fear she felt because of the men and women with Swastikas on their arms.

One of her most vivid negative memories is the time she was forced to raise her arm in a "Hail Hitler" salute as Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels passed by her family's home in an open car. "It still makes me shudder," she said.

Her father lost his job, because of his ethnicity, as a department store salesman. The middle class family made do by selling specially blended ground coffee and baked goods.

Two years after sending their daughter to live with a foster family in America, as the Nazis' persecution intensified, they took Moss' younger sister and fled Germany, moving to Argentina, illegally, by way of Uruguay. They asked Moss to join them there, but she refused.

"I was American now," she remembers thinking. Part of her resistance, she said, might have been the deeply hurt feelings that her mother did not accompany her on the train ride from Berlin to Hamburg, where she boarded a ship to America.

Though her parents could have forced her to join them in Argentina, they chose not to. The couple rebuilt their lives in Buenos Aires. They and Moos were unable to visit each other for another 22 years. When they finally did, it was a surreal experience.

Moos was now married, with three children. Her eldest, a girl, was 13 and resembled Moss at that age. When they met at the airport, Moos' mother immediately gravitated to her granddaughter and called her "Ruth."

Moos visited her parents in Buenos Aires 14 times before they died. She never did learn why her mother did not accompany her on that train ride to Hamburg.

"I just couldn't ask her," she said.

Moos doesn't like to think about anything that happened in Europe 75 years ago if she can help it. Even flashes of Nazi or World War II content on the television still give her nightmares that feel too real, she said.

Moos agreed to be interviewed by The Orange County Register as a favor to her friend Jeff Wolff of Mission Viejo, the planning committee chairman for Kindertransport Association's international conference this weekend in Irvine.

STORIES OF SURVIVAL

It is the first time the biennial event is in Southern California. About 50 kindertransport survivors, including Wolff's father, Michael Wolff, are expected to attend, along with 75 descendents and supporters.

"It is important that the stories and legacy of the kindertransport continue," Wolff said. "It is a story of survival, and it should inspire future generations."

The exodus of unaccompanied youth from Nazi territory peaked in the nine months before the war in response to a coordinated, one-night mob action in November 1938 that ended with the destruction of 7,000 Jewish businesses and 1,000 synagogues; the arrests of 30,000 Jewish men age 18-50 and 91 deaths.

Among those arrested that night was Michael Wolff's father. His mother borrowed money from extended family to bribe officials and get him out, a common practice before the start of the war, according to Michael Wolff.

"Once the war started, you couldn't get out," he said.

A few weeks before his third birthday, after his father's arrest, Michael's mother sent him to live with a foster family in Scotland. A year and a half later, the coupled moved to Bolivia and Michael rejoined them. Only one of the 11 boxes of household goods they shipped arrived. It was full of linens, which they pawned to buy food.

"We were dirt poor," Wolff said.

As soon as they were settled, they applied for visas to move to America. After waiting 11 years, their number finally came up and they moved to Tennessee. Michael Wolff now lives in Santa Barbara but is joining his son in Orange County this weekend for the 2012 Kindertransport Association Conference. He has been attending the event for 45 years, he said.

Moos, on the other hand, does not plan to attend the conference.

"I don't want to look back, I want to look forward and upward," she said. "I know what happened. But I can't dwell on it."

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